U.S. House

Rhode Island has two congressional seats on the ballot in 2012. A total of 16 candidates filed to run, made up of 4 Democratic challengers, 6 Republican challengers, 2 incumbents, and 4 third-party candidates. A total of 429 U.S. House seats have held primaries. Thus far, 55.01% of possible primaries have been contested. Rhode Island's contested figure of 100% (4 out of 4 possible party primaries) is much more competitive than the national average.

State legislature

In Rhode Island, there are 113 total legislative seats with elections in 2012. There were 43 (38%) contested Democratic primaries and 5 (4%) contested Republican primaries. Thus, there were 48 (21%) races with at least two candidates on the ballot. The 21% figure of contested primaries in Rhode Island was higher than the current national contested average of 18.4%.

There were a total of 34 incumbents facing primary opposition -- 32 Democrats and 2 Republicans. A total of seven incumbents were defeated, six in the House and one in the Senate: